The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™

by Oscar Wilde

  “Ay, ay, sir. I knows the craft well enough, and I knows the roads, too; there’ll be no end of foundering against the breakers to find where they lie.”

  “No, no, Jack; you needn’t do that; but mind your bearings. Jack, mind your bearings.”

  “Never fear; I know ’em, well enough; my eyes ain’t laid up in ordinary yet.”

  “Eh? What do you mean by that, you dog, eh?”

  “Nothing; only I can see without helps to read, or glasses either; so I know one place from another.”

  There was now some one moving within; and the admiral, followed by Jack Pringle, entered the Hall. Henry Bannerworth was there. They were all ready to go when the coach came for them, which the admiral had ordered for them.

  “Jack, you lubber; where are you?”

  “Ay, ay, sir, here am I.”

  “Go, and station yourself up in some place where you can keep a good look-out for the coach, and come and report when you see it.”

  “Ay—ay, sir,” said Jack, and away he went from the room, and stationed himself up in one of the trees, that commanded a good view of the main road for some distance.

  “Admiral Bell,” said Henry, “here we are, trusting implicitly to you; and in doing so, I am sure I am doing right.”

  “You will see that,” said the admiral. “All’s fair and honest as yet; and what is to come, will speak for itself.”

  “I hope you won’t suffer from any of these nocturnal visits,” said Henry.

  “I don’t much care about them; but old Admiral Bell don’t strike his colours to an enemy, however ugly he may look. No, no; it must be a better craft than his own that’ll take him; and one who won’t run away, but that will grapple yard-arm and yard-arm, you know.”

  “Why, admiral, you must have seen many dangers in your time, and be used to all kinds of disturbances and conflicts. You have had a life of experience.”

  “Yes; and experience has come pretty thick sometimes, I can tell you, when it comes in the shape of Frenchmen’s broadsides.”

  “I dare say, then, it must be rather awkward.”

  “Death by the law,” said the admiral, “to stop one of them with your head, I assure you. I dare not make the attempt myself, though I have often seen it done.”

  “I dare say; but here are Flora and my mother.”

  As he spoke, Flora and her mother entered the apartment.

  “Well, admiral, we are all ready; and, though I may feel somewhat sorry at leaving the old Hall, yet it arises from attachment to the place, and not any disinclination to be beyond the reach of these dreadful alarms.”

  “And I, too, shall be by no means sorry,” said Flora; “I am sure it is some gratification to know we leave a friend here, rather than some others, who would have had the place, if they could have got it, by any means.”

  “Ah, that’s true enough, Miss Flora,” said the admiral; “but we’ll run the enemy down yet, depend upon it. But once away, you will be free from these terrors; and now, as you have promised, do not let yourselves be seen any where at all.”

  “You have our promises, admiral; and they shall be religiously kept, I can assure you.”

  “Boat, ahoy—ahoy!” shouted Jack.

  “What boat?” said the admiral, surprised; and then he muttered, “Confound you for a lubber! Didn’t I tell you to mind your bearings, you dog-fish you?”

  “Ay, ay, sir—and so I did.”

  “You did.”

  “Yes, here they are. Squint over the larboard bulk-heads, as they call walls, and then atween the two trees on the starboard side of the course, then straight ahead for a few hundred fathoms, when you come to a funnel as is smoking like the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and then in a line with that on the top of the hill, comes our boat.”

  “Well,” said the admiral, “that’ll do. Now go open the gates, and keep a bright look out, and if you see anybody near your watch, why douse their glim.”

  “Ay—ay, sir,” said Jack, and he disappeared.

  “Rather a lucid description,” said Henry, as he thought of Jack’s report to the admiral.

  “Oh, it’s a seaman’s report. I know what he means; it’s quicker and plainer than the land lingo, to my ears, and Jack can’t talk any other, you see.”

  By this time the coach came into the yard, and the whole party descended into the court-yard, where they came to take leave of the old place.

  “Farewell, admiral.”

  “Good bye,” said the admiral. “I hope the place you are going to will be such as please you—I hope it will.”

  “I am sure we shall endeavour to be pleased with it, and I am pretty sure we shall.”

  “Good bye.”

  “Farewell, Admiral Bell,” said Henry.

  “You remember your promises?”

  “I do. Good bye, Mr. Chillingworth.”

  “Good bye,” said Mr. Chillingworth, who came up to bid them farewell; “a pleasant journey, and may you all be the happier for it.”

  “You do not come with us?”

  “No; I have some business of importance to attend to, else I should have the greatest pleasure in doing so. But good bye; we shall not be long apart, I dare say.”

  “I hope not,” said Henry.

  The door of the carriage was shut by the admiral, who looked round, saying—

  “Jack—Jack Pringle, where are you, you dog?”

  “Here am I,” said Jack.

  “Where have you been to?”

  “Only been for pigtail,” said Jack. “I forgot it, and couldn’t set sail without it.”

  “You dog you; didn’t I tell you to mind your bearings?”

  “So I will,” said Jack, “fore and aft—fore and aft, admiral.”

  “You had better,” said the admiral, who, however, relaxed into a broad grin, which he concealed from Jack Pringle.

  Jack mounted the coach-box, and away it went, just as it was getting dark. The old admiral had locked up all the rooms in the presence of Henry Bannerworth; and when the coach had gone out of sight, Mr. Chillingworth came back to the Hall, where he joined the admiral.

  “Well,” he said, “they are gone, Admiral Bell, and we are alone; we have a clear stage and no favour.”

  “The two things of all others I most desire. Now, they will be strangers where they are going to, and that will be something gained. I will endeavour to do some thing if I get yard-arm and yard-arm with these pirates. I’ll make ’em feel the weight of true metal; I’ll board ’em—damn me, I’ll do everything.”

  “Everything that can be done.”

  “Ay—ay.”

  * * * *

  The coach in which the family of the Bannerworths were carried away continued its course without any let or hindrance, and they met no one on their road during the whole drive. The fact was, nearly everybody was at the conflagration at Sir Francis Varney’s house.

  Flora knew not which way they were going, and, after a time, all trace of the road was lost. Darkness set in, and they all sat in silence in the coach.

  At length, after some time had been spent thus, Flora Bannerworth turned to Jack Pringle, and said—

  “Are we near, or have we much further to go?”

  “Not very much, ma’am,” said Jack. “All’s right, however—ship in the direct course, and no breakers ahead—no lookout necessary; however there’s a land-lubber aloft to keep a look out.”

  As this was not very intelligible, and Jack seemed to have his own reasons for silence, they asked him no further questions; but in about three-quarters of an hour, during which time the coach had been driving through the trees, they came to a standstill by a sudden pull of the check-string from Jack, who said—

  “Hilloa!—take in sails, and drop anchor.”

  “Is this the place?”

  �
�Yes, here we are,” said Jack; “we’re in port now, at all events;” and he began to sing—

  “The trials and the dangers of the voyage is past,”

  when the coach door opened, and they all got out and looked about them where they were.

  “Up the garden if you please, ma’am—as quick as you can; the night air is very cold.”

  Flora and her mother and brother took the hint, which was meant by Jack to mean that they were not to be seen outside. They at once entered a pretty garden, and then they came to a very neat and picturesque cottage. They had no time to look up at it, as the door was immediately opened by an elderly female, who was intended to wait upon them.

  Soon after, Jack Pringle and the coachman entered the passage with the small amount of luggage which they had brought with them. This was deposited in the passage, and then Jack went out again, and, after a few minutes, there was the sound of wheels, which intimated that the coach had driven off.

  Jack, however, returned in a few minutes afterwards, having secured the wicket-gate at the end of the garden, and then entered the house, shutting the door carefully after him.

  Flora and her mother looked over the apartments in which they were shown with some surprise. It was, in everything, such as they could wish; indeed, though it could not be termed handsomely or extravagantly furnished, or that the things were new, yet, there was all that convenience and comfort could require, and some little of the luxuries.

  “Well,” said Flora, “this is very thoughtful of the admiral. The place will really be charming, and the garden, too, delightful.”

  “Mustn’t be made use of just now,” said Jack, “if you please, ma’am; them’s the orders at present.”

  “Very well,” said Flora, smiling. “I suppose, Mr. Pringle, we must obey them.”

  “Jack Pringle, if you please,” said Jack. “My commands only temporary. I ain’t got a commission.”

  CHAPTER LVII.

  THE LONELY WATCH, AND THE ADVENTURE IN THE DESERTED HOUSE.

  It is now quite night, and so peculiar and solemn a stillness reigns in and about Bannerworth Hall and its surrounding grounds, that one might have supposed it a place of the dead, deserted completely after sunset by all who would still hold kindred with the living. There was not a breath of air stirring, and this circumstance added greatly to the impression of profound repose which the whole scene exhibited.

  The wind during the day had been rather of a squally character, but towards nightfall, as is often usual after a day of such a character, it had completely lulled, and the serenity of the scene was unbroken even by the faintest sigh from a wandering zephyr.

  The moon rose late at that period, and as is always the case at that interval between sunset and the rising of that luminary which makes the night so beautiful, the darkness was of the most profound character.

  It was one of those nights to produce melancholy reflections—a night on which a man would be apt to review his past life, and to look into the hidden recesses of his soul to see if conscience could make a coward of him in the loneliness and stillness that breathed around.

  It was one of those nights in which wanderers in the solitude of nature feel that the eye of Heaven is upon them, and on which there seems to be a more visible connection between the world and its great Creator than upon ordinary occasions.

  The solemn and melancholy appear places once instinct with life, when deserted by those familiar forms and faces that have long inhabited them. There is no desert, no uninhabited isle in the far ocean, no wild, barren, pathless tract of unmitigated sterility, which could for one moment compare in point of loneliness and desolation to a deserted city.

  Strip London, mighty and majestic as it is, of the busy swarm of humanity that throng its streets, its suburbs, its temples, its public edifices, and its private dwellings, and how awful would be the walk of one solitary man throughout its noiseless thoroughfares.

  If madness seized not upon him ere he had been long the sole survivor of a race, it would need be cast in no common mould.

  And to descend from great things to smaller—from the huge leviathan city to one mansion far removed from the noise and bustle of conventional life, we way imagine the sort of desolation that reigned through Bannerworth Hall, when, for the first time, after nearly a hundred and fifty years of occupation, it was deserted by the representatives of that family, so many members of which had lived and died beneath its roof. The house, and everything within, without, and around it, seemed actually to sympathize with its own desolation and desertion.

  It seemed as if twenty years of continued occupation could not have produced such an effect upon the ancient edifice as had those few hours of neglect and desertion.

  And yet it was not as if it had been stripped of those time-worn and ancient relics of ornament and furnishing that so long had appertained to it. No, nothing but the absence of those forms which had been accustomed quietly to move from room to room, and to be met here upon a staircase, there upon a corridor, and even in some of the ancient panelled apartments, which give it an air of dreary repose and listlessness.

  The shutters, too, were all closed, and that circumstance contributed largely to the production of that gloomy effect which otherwise could not have ensued.

  In fact, what could be done without attracting very special observation was done to prove to any casual observer that the house was untenanted.

  But such was not really the case. In that very room where the much dreaded Varney the vampire had made one of his dreaded appearances to Flora Bannerworth and her mother, sat two men.

  It was from that apartment that Flora had discharged the pistol, which had been left to her by her brother, and the shot from which it was believed by the whole family had most certainly taken effect upon the person of the vampire.

  It was a room peculiarly accessible from the gardens, for it had long French windows opening to the very ground, and but a stone step intervened between the flooring of the apartment and a broad gravel walk which wound round that entire portion of the house.

  It was in this room, then, that two men sat in silence, and nearly in darkness.

  Before them, and on a table, were several articles of refreshment, as well of defence and offence, according as their intentions might be.

  There were a bottle and three glasses, and lying near the elbow of one of the men was a large pair of pistols, such as might have adorned the belt of some desperate character, who wished to instil an opinion of his prowess into his foes by the magnitude of his weapons.

  Close at hand, by the same party, lay some more modern fire arms, as well as a long dirk, with a silver mounted handle.

  The light they had consisted of a large lantern, so constructed with a slide, that it could be completely obscured at a moment’s notice; but now as it was placed, the rays that were allowed to come from it were directed as much from the window of the apartment, as possible, and fell upon the faces of the two men, revealing them to be Admiral Bell and Dr. Chillingworth.

  It might have been the effect of the particular light in which he sat, but the doctor looked extremely pale, and did not appear at all at his ease.

  The admiral, on the contrary, appeared in as placable a state of mind as possible and had his arms folded across his breast, and his head shrunk down between his shoulders as if he had made up his mind to something that was to last a long time, and, therefore he was making the best of it.

  “I do hope,” said Mr. Chillingworth, after a long pause, “that our efforts will be crowned with success—you know, my dear sir, that I have always been of your opinion, that there was a great deal more in this matter than met the eye.”

  “To be sure,” said the admiral, “and as to our efforts being crowned with success, why, I’ll give you a toast, doctor, ‘may the morning’s reflection provide for the evening’s amusement.’”

 
“Ha! ha!” said Chillingworth, faintly; “I’d rather not drink any more, and you seem, admiral, to have transposed the toast in some way. I believe it runs, ‘may the evening’s amusement bear the morning’s reflection.’”

  “Transpose the devil!” said the admiral; “what do I care how it runs? I gave you my toast, and as to that you mention, it’s another one altogether, and a sneaking, shore-going one too: but why don’t you drink?”

  “Why, my dear sir, medically speaking, I am strongly of opinion that, when the human stomach is made to contain a large quantity of alcohol, it produces bad effects upon the system. Now, I’ve certainly taken one glass of this infernally strong Hollands, and it is now lying in my stomach like the red-hot heater of a tea-urn.”

  “Is it? put it out with another, then.”

  “Ay, I’m afraid that would not answer, but do you really think, admiral, that we shall effect anything by waiting here, and keeping watch and ward, not under the most comfortable circumstances, this first night of the Hall being empty.”

  “Well, I don’t know that we shall,” said the admiral; “but when you really want to steal a march upon the enemy, there is nothing like beginning betimes. We are both of opinion that Varney’s great object throughout has been, by some means or another, to get possession of the house.”

  “Yes; true, true.”

  “We know that he has been unceasing in his endeavours to get the Bannerworth family out of it; that he has offered them their own price to become its tenant, and that the whole gist of his quiet and placid interview with Flora in the garden, was to supply her with a new set of reasons for urging her mother and brother to leave Bannerworth Hall, because the old ones were certainly not found sufficient.”

  “True, true, most true,” said Mr. Chillingworth, emphatically. “You know, sir, that from the first time you broached that view of the subject to me, how entirely I coincided with you.”

  “Of course you did, for you are a honest fellow, and a right-thinking fellow, though you are a doctor, and I don’t know that I like doctors much better than I like lawyers—they’re only humbugs in a different sort of way. But I wish to be liberal; there is such a thing as an honest lawyer, and, damn me, you’re an honest doctor!”